Opening round at the Cognizant Classic features bird feathers, shots from the mud and hole-outs

It looked like Gerard hit a bird on the 207-yard, par-3 seventh hole; replays showed feathers in the air as his shot made its way to the hole, after the bird flew into the path of the ball shortly after Gerard made contact.

It wasn't clear if the bird was injured. Gerard's approach came to rest about 35 feet from the hole and the highest-ranked player in the field — No. 26 in the world — went on make a two-putt par.

Ford had a lot of adventures.

He started on the back nine and was 1 over when he got to the par-3 17th, his eighth hole of the day. His tee shot headed toward the water, came to rest in the mud, and he tried to play from there up a hill toward the green.

The shot made it halfway up, then rolled back to the mud. He tried again. Same thing. Enough was enough; he walked back to the drop area and wound up making a quadruple-bogey 7.

“My brain was instantly going towards one bad hole can’t do too much damage to me if I play great the rest of the way coming in, and if my game is good enough to win, then it should be no problem to have a good finish,” Ford said. “Even with a quad.”

The power of positive thinking.

He got those four shots back in two holes, with back-to-back eagles on the par-4 second and par-5 third — part of three consecutive holes where he holed out from off the green. Ford connected from 144 yards out on No. 2, chipped in from about 30 yards on No. 3, then holed a bunker shot to save par at No. 4 after leaving his previous shot in the same bunker.

“It was insane ... a wild round,” Ford said.

Ford finished at 1-over 72. Gerard shot a 2-over 73.

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